Alain de Botton: Why self-help books are useful

Open Minds: Mark my words, says Alain de Botton, the self-help book is not to be sniffed at

There is no more ridiculed literary genre than the self-help book. Admit that you regularly turn to such titles to help you cope with existence and you are liable to attract the scorn and suspicion of all who aspire to look well educated and well bred. As if on a mission to deny

the category even a shred of respectability, the publishers of self-help books deck them out with lurid covers, while booksellers entomb them near the mind, body and spirit section, where they blur into an indistinguishable mass of sickly pink and purple spines.

It wasn't always like this. For 2,000 years in the history of the West, the self-help book stood as a pinnacle of literary achievement. The ancients were particularly adept practitioners. Epicurus wrote some 300 self-help books on almost every topic, including On Love, On Justice and On Human Life. The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote volumes